Can Lights Keep Carnivores Away From Samburu Homesteads?

Human-carnivore conflict is a serious issue threatening the status of many species and community livelihoods around the globe. Across Africa, when carnivores kill livestock, people will often respond with lethal control in retaliation. This is because livestock are culturally and economically important to many indigenous communities. But conflict such as this, cannot be solved by removing every carnivore that takes livestock. When one predator is killed, it is later replaced by another, making this an ongoing cycle. The situation is similar in the United States. Wolves, coyotes, foxes, and bears can often be a nuisance to those who own domestic animals. But again, killing them for eating your chickens or goats is not how you will eliminate future conflict…and by doing so you are also affecting the area’s natural balance by removing these important predators from the ecosystem. Last year, in partnership with non-profit, Action for Cheetahs in Kenya, I visited a Samburu community in Meibae Community Conservancy. The majority of people living in Meibae are nomadic pastoralists – herding their animals North during the dry season, in search of green pasture and water. They rely on their livestock for meat and milk, as well as for transporting heavy items during their long-distance journeys, which can take months to complete. Cattle, donkeys, goats, and camels are all an important part of everyday life in this area. Without them, surviving in the harsh, arid landscape of Meibae would be impossible.To help reduce livestock losses, and at the same time conserve local carnivore species, we installed Foxlights at three homesteads. Each homestead received two Foxlight units, one on each side of their property and set at approximately 8-9 ft off the ground. We then placed an average of 10 motion-sensing cameras around each homestead to monitor the activity of carnivores. We also set cameras at three other properties without lights in order tocompare visitation by species between Foxlight sites and those under “normal conditions.”Through this project, we hoped to determine if lights could keep carnivores away, and after 3 months of testing we found that the Foxlights did seem to have some effect on spotted hyenas. Hyenas are the least tolerated and most persistent livestock predators in Meibae. Other species, such as black-backed jackals continued visiting even after the lights were set-up. We also had leopards visit Foxlight sites twice. Apparently this was no surprise to the Samburu, saying that “leopards are not even afraid of fire!”During the entire study period, there were no livestock losses, except on one occasion. We received a report that a spotted hyena had entered and killed 2 small goats during the night and after talking with the family the next morning, we realized they had not blocked the entrances to their homestead before going to sleep. What this suggests is that lights might not be enough to keep carnivores from entering if domestic animals are not fenced in properly. To keep livestock safe you need both!We encouraged all families to continue maintaining their fencing even when the lights were on, especially because we were still in the experimental stages and could unfortunately not guarantee that livestock attacks would stop.Foxlights are designed in a way that is fitting to the nomadic lifestyle of the Samburu people. They are light in weight, portable, easy to install and don’t require much maintenance, if any. They are also less costly than other light systems. This is why more testing of the Foxlights is currently underway! Repeating this initial test is very important to know for certain if Foxlights will be able to reduce livestock depredation over the long-term in this part of Kenya. So stay tuned for more results!For more information about this project, please feel free to contact me at acasillas@antioch.edu